The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

The Justified Ancients of Mummu is one of the two protagonist 'secret societies' in the "Illuminatus!" series of books by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. In the books, the JAMs are in a seemingly endless struggle fo

The Justified Ancients of Mummu is one of the two protagonist 'secret societies' in the "Illuminatus!" series of books by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. In the books, the JAMs are in a seemingly endless struggle for control of human culture, government and power with their enemies, the Illuminati. Whereas the Illuminati's tactics are to restrict, govern and control the populace, the JAMs' aim is to bring about anarchy and an end to any possibility of ultimate control.

The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu name was adopted in 1987 by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, fans of the books, for their intended attack on the institution of the music industry in the UK, mirroring the (fictional) JAMs' gleeful political tactics of causing chaos and confusion by bringing a direct, humorous but nevertheless revolutionary approach to making records. The JAMs' primary instrument was the newly invented digital sampler, with which they would plagiarise the history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts. An early and seminal influence in the development of sampling music in the United Kingdom, The JAMs notoriously and wilfully ran afoul of copyright laws when they sampled large portions of the ABBA single Dancing Queen.